BioThrust

BioThrust develops tailor-made aeration solutions for bioreactors. These include highly porous stirrers that simultaneously induce gas bubbles into the reactor and lead to a better gas supply than conventional systems. On the other hand, the team is developing flow-optimised in-situ membrane modules that allow purely diffusive, bubble-free gas input while at the same time circulating the culture medium very carefully. As a result, bioprocesses can be aerated up to 30 times more efficiently without foaming and even sensitive biosystems such as cell cultures can be supplied with sufficient oxygen.

As part of the Innovation Sprint, the products’ market readiness was increased through further professionalisation and scale-up. In this way, further prototypes were manufactured and a scale-up from 2- to 10-liter reactors was realised for the first time. In addition, the team obtained its own reactor set-up, which enables flexible and rapid prototype testing under real conditions. The experience gained throughout the Innovation Sprint has encouraged the team to pursue their start-up project, which will be initiated in July 2021 with an application for the EXIST Transfer of Research.